Now, take that review, put it in a cask for about 2 years. Then take whatever you find in the cask (presumably distilled sociopathy) and move out to a meth lab in the desert. Once you’ve managed to distill, cook, and, um, whatever other words for “reduce” and “refine” exist in the english language to Saints Row: The Third, you’ll have something that gets close to describing Saints Row IV.

Basically, it is to the Saints Row series what this song is to hip hop:

Yes. Ass. And Titties. Ass ass titties titties, ass and titties: The game. And you know what? I think I’m ok with that.

During the Square Enix pre E3 showcase a few weeks back (the same showcase in which we saw the non-playable demo of Murdered; Soul Suspect), Volition (courtesy of Deep Silver, who have a longstanding distro deal with Square) were on hand to provide a hands-on glimpse of the upcoming sequel to the last popular game Volition’s former parent company, THQ, managed to release. Featuring approximately 20 minutes of scripted story mission and… hours of just dicking around, the game isn’t complete yet. SR4 doesn’t come out for two more months, final touches are no doubt still being added, and there are numerous spoilers yet to be made available for anyone other than the team at Volition to offer a true assessment of the game we’re about to discuss. But even so, it was apparent from the playable demo that what we saw is fairly close to what we will see come August 20.

Our verdict? It’s shaping up to be a nonstop, morally reprehensible yuk fest that manages to be intensely fun, intensely silly, and something like a combination of Crackdown and APB. But you can tell this game started out as an expansion pack rather than a full sequel. If you were hoping for something that might harken back to the grittier, meaner, somewhat more serious tone of the first and second game, you’ll probably come away disappointed. Still, if you want every crazy, weird, batsh*t insane nonsense element of Saints Row: The Third, with a heaping spoonful of fanservice that rivals Fast & Furious 6, you’re probably going to love Saints Row IV.

The Setting

Saints Row IV is set in what appears to be the logical extension of the “good” ending of Saints Row: The Third. That ending has the player character (“The Boss”) saving Burt Reynolds, Shaundi, and Viola DeWinters from a false flag operation conducted by a military organization called STAG, essentially become state-sanctioned heroes due to having saved the city of Steelport from a massive gang war, then filming a movie called Gangstas In Space. Presumably, Gangstas in Space was a hit because at the start of SR4, you learn The Boss has been elected President of the United States.

With him (or her – it was confirmed to me that players can still freely choose your character’s sex, though the demo featured only the default male), as always, are the elite lieutenants of the 3rd Street Saints. Shaundi, Pierce, Kinsie, and (weirdly enough) Matt Miller are all on hand as members of President Boss’s administration. Joining them are a couple of familiar faces from the series’ past: Benjamin King, leader of the Vice Kings from the original Saints Row, as Secretary of State, and Keith David, as Keith David, service as your Vice President.

As you begin the game – and the Demo’s story-based section took place very early – you’re apparently the most effective president in history (more on that shortly), which puts you in the perfect position to deal with the sudden invasion by space aliens led by Lord Zinyak. The invaders interrupt a press conference and begin kidnapping dignitaries and members of your staff and cabinet while raining destruction down on Washington, D.C. and, presumably, the rest of America. Ultimately, they kidnap The Boss and place them into a massive simulation designed to break their spirit and make them a compliant servant to the new alien overlords.

That simulation is a recreation of Steelport from Saints Row IV, with a heavy dose of elements from the memories of The Boss and his crew. Inside the simulation is pure The Matrix, where the normal rules of physics can be bent, or outright broken, which basically serves as an excuse to give The Boss super powers. Here, the Boss will have to work their way through numerous enemies (both legacy – like police and rival gangs – and new, the Aliens) until they can figure out a way out of the virtual prison and back into the real world. It’s really nothing more than an excuse to take everything from Saints Row: The Third and magnify it by 4000.

We love Saints Row: The Third. Really, like, a lot. Profane, violent, stupid, ridiculous, it’s hours of nothing but fun and funny stuff. It’s the kind of game made by fans, for fans and I can’t get enough. But you know what would make it better? Modding tools. If only there were already some available.

Sequels adorned this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo — nothing new in this industry, where long-running franchises are king and many publishers and developers love to milk an IP for all it’s worth. But amid all those 2′s and 3′s on the show floor, there were a few interesting standouts. Why interesting? Because the games that spawned those sequels weren’t particularly great to begin with.

But even though there were a few properties at E3 that had us scratching our heads thinking, “Really?”, we were intrigued by what we saw. In fact, there were a few games that seemed a little odd but interesting — games that seem to have acquired a familiar title while being wholly different from their predecessors, or games that are trying to reinvigorate a good idea that might not have been well-executed on the first go.

We’ve compiled a short list of E3 games that we didn’t expect to excite us, but that have piqued our interest. These are four games that might just save their respective franchises.

Phil Hornshaw’s Picks

Prey 2
The original Prey, released in 2006 by Human Head Studios and 3D Realms, took some interesting approaches to the first-person shooter. The game toyed around with things like gravity, size, portals — all nice changes in what was quickly becoming a boring world of running and gunning. Unfortunately, Prey suffered from quite a bit of standard running and gunning itself, even if the things you were shooting at happened to be upside down or standing on a wall.

It’ll be almost six years on when Prey 2 is released, this time under the watchful eyes of Bethesda in place of 3D Realms but with Human Head still at the helm. And while the title carries the “Prey” moniker, it seems to be a wholly different experience. Prey 2 has a noir feel, it’s about hunting enemies rather than being hunted by them, it abandons all that physics manipulation and it includes free-running, climbing and bounty hunting. These games couldn’t be much more different.

But Prey 2 is promising because it also seems to have moved in a more open direction and taken fewer cues from Half-Life and Doom than its predecessor did. It also doesn’t contain any walls or objects that resemble human female anatomy — see below.

That alone is a step in the right direction.

Add in fast-paced action and a vibrant alien world that seems a lot like hanging out in Mass Effect 2′s Omega, and we could be looking at a Prey game that sets up a new, exciting direction for the IP. We’re hoping the noir/western feel of this trailer actually pans out.

The Darkness II
From a narrative standpoint, the first iteration of The Darkness was a solid game. Based on a series of comics of the same name, it had some interesting ideas and gave the first-person shooter a shot in the arm by mixing in demonic powers granted by a monster called The Darkness. It also had some strong voice acting, a mob-heavy story line, and lots of gore.

It also was an incredibly annoying game to play, allowing players to wander around sections of New York by subway and to spend a whole lot of time lost. The shooting aspects — the game’s backbone — were weak to the point of being irritating, with aiming at and actually hitting enemies an extremely uneven experience. And while there was all that Darkness power at one’s fingertips, actually using it for much of the game was difficult because the powers were largely limited until they were unlocked, so it wasn’t like you could take enemies apart with the two snake-like heads growing out of your shoulders. There was no speed to the combat in much of the game. Plus, main character Jackie moved like someone had just shot him with a tranquilizer dart.

Digital Extremes, the studio behind Homefront and BioShock 2, has taken the reins from Starbreeze Studios for The Darkness II, and already it seems as though the new developer has addressed a lot of the game’s old weaknesses. Level design is tighter — perhaps more corridor-like — but also better-designed to accommodate Jackie’s revamped Darkness powers as well as the game’s emphasis on shooting. Enemies no longer seem too far away to engage, which is a major plus.

More emphasis has been put on the comics, according to Lead Designer Tom Galt, and it shows in the art style as well as the story. The sequel is more about Jackie’s relationship with the darkness, and the game includes more enemies than just simple mobsters who don’t know anything about The Darkness — these are actually cult members trying to steal the demon from Jackie for their own ends, and they know that to fight it, they need to employ light.

Meanwhile, the entire game handles better, from what we’ve seen so far. Jackie can carry up to two guns at a time, and use both with the trigger buttons (ironsights aiming goes on the left one when he has only one weapon), and he can employ The Darkness at any time. One side grabs enemies and can execute them, which is controlled by either a bumper or a shoulder button on the left, and the other can swipe and stab at enemies, controlled by the shoulder button on the right. In this way, Jackie has four options for any given situation, and it makes The Darkness a fluid part of every combat situation. It makes the game a ton more fun to actually play, and makes Jackie feel much more powerful.

Ross Lincoln’s Picks

Risen 2: Dark Waters

2009′s Risen was a fairly interesting action RPG, notable for its unique setting (a mediterranean island with varying climates and environments). It didn’t suck but it was a fairly unremarkable, by the numbers fantasy plot, and the game also came with some pretty big flaws, including 1) a very gigantic discrepancy between PC and console graphics due in part to the console version having been outsourced, and 2) a hell of a lot of level recycling.

At E3, I spent half an hour with reps from Deep Silver for a look at Risen 2: Dark Water, and while I wasn’t able to actually play the game – it is still very early in development, so the presentation consisted of screen shots and a brief demo played by one of the attending reps – what I saw has a lot of promise. After acknowledging the significant differences between Risen’s PC and Xbox graphics, they showed off the vast improvements for Risen 2. Improvements made possible in part because they’re developing both versions simultaneously, rather than outsourcing the console version long after the PC version is done. While Risen 2 still won’t look as good on Xbox as it will on PC, it looks leaps and bounds better than Risen did.

Better still, when I asked point blank about the problem of level recycling, I was treated to a claim that, if true, is stunning: To avoid recycling, every single element in the game, from boxes to stones to walls to leaves of grass, will have been placed, by hand, by one of the developers. Naturally they’ll still be using modules, so big rocks will look like other big rocks and boxes will look like other boxes, but when complete every village, forest, dungeon or beach will be entirely unique.

The most promising part? As you’ll notice from the photo, while the game is still a magical/fantasy RPG, the setting has changed and it now involves ocean Pirates of the 17th century variety.

As I said, I only got to see a tiny fraction of the game, but if the promises made during the demo are kept, Risen 2 has the potential to significantly differentiate the Risen series from other RPG titles.

Saints Row: The Third

Yes, technically this is the second sequel to a fairly popular series, but considering the decidedly mediocre first title and the somewhat ignored sequel, it fits. A little background wank: The Saints Row series began inauspiciously as a middling, so-so GTA clone. About the only thing it had going for it was the rather extreme side missions, like insurance fraud or drug dealing missions that far exceeded anything ever seen in Grand Theft Auto.or the detailed character customization and ability to get drunk or stoned. Otherwise, they largely matched the tone of GTA note for note, and the result was a largely forgettable, if not terrible, game that I didn’t touch again once I beat it.

In Saints Row 2, THQ realized they were never going to be able to reinvent the GTA wheel, so instead of trying they simply took everything that worked in Saints Row and added a hefty dose of bleak humor that did an excellent job of completely differentiating it from the GTA series. Unfortunately, they released the game less than 4 months after 2008′s GTA IV. While Saints Row 2 eventually sold nearly 2 million copies, it was mostly forgotten due everyone temporarily agreeing that GTA IV was the Greatest Game Ever Made Period.

Saints Row: The Third might finally be the chance for the series to step out from out of GTA’s shadow. Not only is it not being released in direct competition with a new GTA game, it’s closely following the template laid down in Saints Row 2: take everything that worked and make it even better. The hilarious side missions are returning but even more sociopathic than ever. The rampage missions now give you the option of destroying everything with a tank. Cartoony melee weapons have been added, like a pair of Hulk-Fist style gloves that literally turn whomever you punch into a bloody cloud of people-goo. The plot, picking up from where the previous game left off, now sees the main characters as something of anti-celebrities, and that aspect is played up for hilarious results. During the E3 demo, in the middle of a bank robbery mission, one of the hostages interrupted the main character to ask for an autograph. In short, it seems designed to be just really fun and really extreme, non stop, with some light, if dumb dumb satire that, if it works as well as it did in Saints Row 2, will accidentally be great.

What we saw at E3 was limited to a 10 minute demo, but it looks, frankly, pretty f*cking awesome. Certainly, it’s not going to be hailed as a game changer, but it looks like it might be the chance for the series to finally get a little respect.

As you’re no doubt aware, Steam has some high-powered sales going right now. They’re calling it the “Perils of Summer” sale, and it’s accompanied by some useful advice, and daily price cuts on a number of games.

Aside from all the complete packs that are discounted, today’s offerings are quite enticing. A few highlights:

Day of Defeat: Source $2.49

Star Wars Empire at War: Gold Edition $4.99

Crysis Maximum Edition $19.99

Saints Row 2 $7.49

Borderlands $10.19

Half-Life 2 $3.39

If you’ve been wanting to try any of these titles, now’s the time to pick them up. These deals expire at 12 noon EST tomorrow, so you need to head on over to Steam to check out the full list and pick up the ones you want.

Conjuring up images of a man with a monocle (for Jonathan, at least), Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey has criticized a recent Saints Row 2 trailer that ripped on Grand Theft Auto IV, referring to it as “pompous.”

“The trailer directly attacks Grand Theft Auto IV in game content, an unusually pompous position in our view, considering GTA IV is estimated to be the highest grossing 1st week entertainment release of all time – and is currently the highest quality scored game on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 according to Metacritic.com,” Hickey said in a note sent to clients and certain press, according to Gamasutra.

He continued, “We remain conservative on our sales expectations for Saints Row 2, in light of mediocre game previews and a delayed release in-part from quality concerns.”

That seems pretty harsh of him. The trailer (watch it here) seemed pretty tongue-in-cheek to me, and I found it absolutely hilarious. Of course, if the first game is any indication, Saints Row 2 itself will be polluted with lame, uninspired satire that’s a poor rip from the GTA games. That notwithstanding, I still believe the trailer was terrific, and I hope it’s the first of many to come.